The invention refers to a battery with liquid electrolyte, preferably for use in moving vehicles, such as for example in automobiles, boats or air planes, and with a device for intermixing the electrolyte.
The pursuit in the automobile industry for lightweight construction also refers to saving in battery weight. At the same time the demand for greater battery power is increasing, since aside from the conventional energy needed, for example, to start an automobile, energy for additional aggregates, such as electrical window cranks, control motors for changing seat positions or also electrical heating of the seats, is required. Furthermore, it is desirable to possibly maintain the battery power at a constant high level over the life of the battery, since increasingly also security related functions, such as steering and braking are controlled and operated electrically. Battery power as used henceforth is understood as the capacity of the battery, as well as the capacity of the battery relating to electric current delivery or electric current uptake. Battery power is affected by different factors as known to those skilled in the art.
From the prior art, means are known to increase the power of a battery with a liquid electrolyte, such as for example, a lead-acid-battery. A specific problem with lead-acid batteries is the so-called stratification of the acid, that is, the acid concentration is not consistent with respect to the electrode surface. This results in the corroding of the electrodes at points of the electrode where the acid concentration is too high, thus diminishing the battery life, and at points on the electrode where the acid concentration is too low, the battery does not attain full power.
Henceforth, the electrolyte is always identified as an acid because most applications of the present invention refer to lead-acid batteries. The present invention is however applicable to any liquid electrolyte battery the electrolyte of which tends toward stratification.
Accordingly, various devices and methods were developed to intermix the acid in order for the acid concentration to be uniform. For example, in stationary batteries air is blown into the electrolyte.
For motor vehicle batteries acid some intermixing devices that exploit the mass inertia of the acid at acceleration movements are known. This technology is known to the person skilled in the art so that U.S. Pat. No. 4,963,444 and DE 297 18 004.5 are only referred to as exemplary documents.
There are starter batteries of particular high construction. With these starter batteries, the acid present in an ascending channel, must be pressed upwards from below through acceleration over a long distance and requiring a rather large amount of energy. Since the energy to move the acid in the channel is generated through the vehicle acceleration, this amount is limited.